Once upon a time, media bulletin board site Mediabistro had a talented, anonymous ad blogger called Agency Spy, who got good dirt and the occasional undeserved murder rap. The original Agency Spy left to start her own blog a couple months ago, but earlier today she put up a post saying the site was grinding to a temporary halt. Why? Because, Mediabistro multimillionaire founder Laurel Touby said, MB was enforcing a noncompete agreement against her! Seems pretty petty, Laurel, considering you're the second-richest internet media woman in New York now. The $23 million Mediabistro machine can't compete with one little alumnus? Tisk tisk. [Adscam, The Brief]

Boa-wearing internet entrepreneur Laurel Touby shocked and awed the media world when she sold her freelancer-helping website MediaBistro for $23 mil, despite her famous inability to use e-mail. "I thought, 'O.K., a car and driver and a new apartment and a whole new life.' In fact, I can only afford two out of three," she told the Times last year. She must be on some sort of branding campaign, because she's still complaining about her millions. She is seriously and totally not that rich! she tells CNBC. For God's sake, she lives in a sixth-floor walkup! Click for the other indignities of being a middle-class millionaire.

There's no Gawker correspondent at this week's Mediabistro conference-unless a tipster volunteers for the role. (Photograph: Julia Allison and sidekicks greeted attendees with top hats.)

Freelancer-helping website MediaBistro's upcoming conference, the unfortunately-named MediaBistro Circus, may not be coming along so well: boa-wearing propriestress Laurel Touby recently emailed, like, literally every single person she knows, begging them to register for "two days of inspired programming designed to bring very senior-level media people up to speed on what's happening in digital media." Another bad sign? Hiring circus freaks via Craigslist—on the cheap.

Boa-wearing MediaBistro entrepreneur Laurel Touby has made the mediabaristas of New York City laugh, again and again, with her inability to use e-mail. (Then we remember that she sold MediaBistro for $23 mil—at which point all laughter abruptly stops.) So you can understand the concern we feel about her brand-new Twitter account. So far she's plugged her conference, announced gym plans, and given out her dining coordinates so people can "drop by and say hello":

We're not the only ones with a fancy new office! MediaBistro is, we hear from sources close to the listings site and blog concern, moving up to 33rd and Park, which is on the Upper East Side or something, right? Should be a fun commute! FishbowlNY editor Neal Ungerleider won't have to make it, though, as his last day at the site is tomorrow. But! Former Gawker editor Emily Gould is now a contributing editor at MediaBistro publishing site GalleyCat! Busy, busy, busy.

Semi-sane octogenarian gossip Liz Smith is really feeling her oat bran now that she's cranking out columns for the aged women's site WowOWow.com. In her latest effort, she tackles the issue of our time: the rumors of Nicole Kidman's breast augmentation. And she speaks without fear or favor:

Rachel Marsden, the former pundit on the Fox show "Red Eye" who was tossed out for being too crazy, and who then went on to date Wikipedia guru Jimmy Wales before breaking up with him and putting his clothes up for sale on eBay, is now, predictably, unemployed. So she's trawling for jobs on Mediabistro, just like you! Marsden has supposedly applied to be a senior publicist at Maxim [P6]. Negatives: She has demonstrated that she is a serial loose cannon who will probably seduce the magazine's top editors and draw them into a scandalous and embarrassing public affair. Positives: She doesn't really like the Black Crowes, either.

Boa-wearing weird-lady Laurel Touby, CEO of MediaBistro (and windfall wealth recipient) stars in a completely ridiculous promotional video for the upcoming MediaBistro conference. It's called, inexplicably, MediaBistro Circus. Just as inexplicably, the video stars Laurel in a ringmaster's uniform and top hat, holding a fake "press conference" with a gaggle of reporters. Stunts like this make our job too easy, but then we realize she's a millionaire, so guess who has the last laugh? Click for the video.

Did you know that seemingly harmless job listings site and blog network MediaBistro is a tool of the FBI? It's all true. FishbowlLA editor Kate Coe wrote an item about the Clintons' secret CIA plot to destory former POW John McCain. Which led one intrepid blogger to uncover the secrets behind the CIA control of the entirety of MediaBistro and Kate Coe's connection to the political assassinations of artists Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake.

The New York Observer's beleaguered media editor, Zachary Roth, "has quit," according to Mediabistro. Word on the street since Roth took over the weekly's press coverage in August, was that he might have been ill-prepared for the task. Roth was under so much pressure, in fact, that according to a source he broke down in the newsroom at one point. Roth politely declined to comment when we asked him about the circumstances of his departure, and for all we know, he had the very good sense to realize that managing an understaffed team of young media reporters on a shoestring budget—in addition to being a pain in the ass—is not the best way to make a buck. However, let it be said: there is no crying in a newsroom. Everyone has been there. Everyone. Me, for example! And you!

So Laurel Touby says she came home from the sale of her allegedly freelance-journalist-helping website Mediabistro.com with $9 to $11 million after taxes. (Really? What about those investors? Hmm.) She tells the Times: "'I had all kinds of illusions about how far the money would go and what I would enjoy, but they're not true,' Ms. Touby said. 'I thought, 'O.K., a car and driver and a new apartment and a whole new life.' In fact, I can only afford two out of three.'" Um, which two would that be? Anyway, here is an example of not to do with that kind of windfall: "She remains determined to buy a Manhattan loft apartment, which will consume half her money, and must still earn $100,000 a year to maintain it, she said." Wow, bad call, sister.

I have never paid, and I will never pay, for an "AvantGuild" membership to "freelancer-helping website" Mediabistro. (Also, I hope that I never have to say "AvantGuild" aloud. What the HELL construction is that?) So I will never read this story by Greg Lindsay about how hard it is for him to write his book. The story's deck is: "From borrowing from John McPhee to 'guarding his headspace' our writer fights to pass the 25,000-word mark." All of those things sound really bad! Unless he's in Princeton, borrowing John McPhee's pencil or something? Anyway, if anyone would like to read and summarize, please do. Also, I would like to meet him some time. Mr. McPhee, not Greg Lindsay. I've already met Greg. He wears nice clothes and is friendly. I gave my mom "Oranges" over Thanksgiving, and guess what? She loved it too. Now I am trying to read that one about the bark canoes and also the one about cattle-rustling. But reading, Greg Lindsay, is almost as hard as writing—I say that as someone who actually finished "Annals of the Former World," and where is my medal?—and don't you forget it.

Mediabistro founder Laurel Touby and all her Laurel Touby-loving friends have put together a very special Christmas video to wish you happy holidays! From Touby's "media family" (which includes husband Jon Fine, Bonnie Fuller, and Arianna Huffington) to yours (which probably doesn't), please have a "warm and fuzzy New Year!" It's just like that I Am African campaign but without any social good and slightly less funny!

Last night, Mediabistro founder Laurel Touby wonderfully displayed her utter inability to use email. (Once again, we question how this woman founded an internet company and sold it for $23 million.) Rebecca Fox, Mediabistro's managing editor, had sent out an email alert that News Corp. had bought Beliefnet.com. Rebecca did not bcc the email list—and so her boss Laurel replied to all. Which started a most unholy email chain!

So just how awesome was Laurel Touby's Mediabistro "Golden Boa" party that her husband Jon Fine is still nursing his hangover via Facebook? This awesome:

Mediabistro, the little $23-million media company that could, is turning 10! So they're throwing themselves a party tonight, with a special extra: The Golden Boa Awards, which recognizes 10 media stars from "from within the 10 verticals that mediabistro.com serves," according to the press release. Mmm, verticals. Each lucky honoree will go home tonight with an actual bronzed feather boa—provided, that is, that they show up—in honor of nutty genius and former owner and for-now senior vice president Laurel Touby. But which of these 10 "media stars" might you see if you crash?

We've had this wacky theory that the new owners of Mediabistro are going to jettison their useless collection of blogs, which, save for TVNewser, are increasingly irrelevant and probably draw focus away from the company's core strength of getting guileless freelancers to shell out money that they could better use for food on "get togethers" and seminars. But maybe we're wrong! There's a brand new blog on the block, and it tries to take the TVNewser formula and apply it to the equally fascinating world of public relations!

The Voice has a great profile of Mediabistro millionairess Laurel Touby today; it includes two of our favorite Laurel anecdotes ever. What you need to know about the former desperate freelancer:

When you sent us an email this morning with a link to your BREAKING NEWS that Karl Rove is resigning, we collectively snarfed up some coffee. (Or a Rolaids-coffee mixture, for some of us.) You know, we all read newspapers. [Fishbowl]